TV via the Internet as an alternative to satellite

2,808 posts in this topic

Oops, I missed the last parts of the discussion there before Christmas.

@Sir Percy B thanks for the sideloading tips, incase I need them in the future.

So I got the AFTV stick on the 24th and have been using it over the holiday. I'm pretty damn pleased so far. I personally find it very fast and smooth and is a breeze to use with the remote. Exactly what I wanted.

For info, I set it up initially with my German Amazon account. This was how it was delivered and it had the German apps already prepared (ARD etc.). Obviously, at this time, I was not able to install any UK apps. I then basically did as advised by @Krieg. On the Amazon.de page I changed my location to the UK. This was easy for me. I have a UK address and credit card set up which I use relatively often on Amazon.co.uk, so I was already good to go.*

I actually had a problem initially with the stick not connecting to Amazon servers, the online advice was to do a factory reset. So I did this at the time of switching my account from DE to UK. Then I did the stick set-up again. This time everything was linked to a UK account and I was able to install all the UK apps. Great. Note: the German apps were all available too. They appeared under "My Apps" and were ready to download again saying "you already own this". So I am now on a UK account but at the same time able to use all the German apps. Best of both worlds.

I was not an Amazon prime member. I have just got a 30 day trial on the UK amazon so I'll be leaving my country location as the UK for now. I have no reason to switch back. The kindle selection is better in the UK too. However, I have done this before in the past and eventually Amazon get wind of my real situation and switch my account back to DE. But this will be fine, and it looks like it should be no problem with regards to the UK apps. Just like it was no problem for the DE apps. Cheers all.

*just for completeness. I set my Getflix smartdns to the use the UK for Amazon Prime.

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For anyone else that has the AFTV stick (and doesn't already know about it yet) I can highly recommend the TVPlayer app. It's freeview over the internet. So the 30 odd free TV channels all live and for free. As far as I can tell this is the "official" freewview app.

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AMAZON MAY BE ATTEMPTING TO BLOCK ANY INSTALLS OF APPS THAT ARE NOT FROM THERE STORE OR APPS THAT MAY BE USED FOR TV ETC.
THIS IS THE SAME FOR PAID SERVICES AND FREE APPS

SUPPOSED TO BE FOR THE NEW 4K FIRESTICK BUT JUST TO MAKE SURE FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW

It is RUMORED that the Mighty Amazon are blocking downloads on the latest 4K version of the Firestick ! This includes any player, perfect player etc or smart ipeeeteeeveee and others as well as as k#di too

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Does it still work without a VPN Gman? The Android App has been updated and now says 'Not supported in your region' unless you trick it with a VPN (I Don't have a smart-dns setup to check that).

The Kodi plugin also now crashes without a VPN.

Yes, to use it you need a VPN or SmartDNS. I got both the AFTV app and android app from the Amazon app store. For that, I also needed to make sure that my amazon account was set as UK (see previous discussion in this thread).

I use access points which support vlans and have a managed switch between router and access points and wired Lan.

This configuration allows me to set up a vlan especially for getflix so only those devices that need smart DNS use it. All the Lan points behind the TV for example use smart DNS.

As my access points support vlans I can create an ssid/vlan for smart DNS should I need to watch something on a mobile device, otherwise they connect to the normal vlan which just uses cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 DNS.

I use the same technique to force my kids devices to use opendns for their lookups (and within openwrt I force the usage of Google etc. Safe search and restricted YouTube).

I also used the technique described by krieg to install BBC etc. from amazon.co.uk (£1 voucher) but it was a couple of years ago. I have the box as back then you needed it if you wanted wired Lan.